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Charlton Thomas Lewis and family letters
mssLewisc
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Title: Charlton Thomas Lewis and family
letters
Inclusive Dates: 1726-1963
Bulk Dates: 1850-1884
Collection Number: mssLewisc
Creator:
Lewis, Charlton T. (Charlton Thomas),
1834-1904
Extent:
12 boxes
Repository:
The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens
Manuscripts Department
1151 Oxford Road
San Marino, California 91108
Phone: (626) 405-2191
Fax: (626) 449-5720
Email: reference@huntington.org
URL: http://www.huntington.org
Abstract: The Charlton Thomas Lewis and family
letters consist of correspondence related to his family, and the family of his wife,
Nancy Dunlap McKneen Lewis.
Language of Material: The records are in English.
Collection is open to qualified researchers by prior application through the
Reader Services Department. For more information, please go to following
web site .
The Huntington Library does not require that researchers request permission to
quote from or publish images of this material, nor does it charge fees for such
activities. The responsibility for identifying the copyright holder, if there is
one, and obtaining necessary permissions rests with the researcher.
Charlton Thomas Lewis and family letters, The Huntington Library, San Marino,
California.
Purchased from Michael Brown Rare Books, LLC, January 2011.
Charlton Thomas Lewis (1834-1904) was an American minister, lawyer, classicist,
actuary, and social reformer.
Lewis was born on February 24, 1834 in West Chester, Pennsylvania, son of Joseph
Jackson Lewis (1801-1883) and Mary Sinton Miner Lewis (1808-1860). He hailed from a
prominent Pennsylvania Quaker family. His paternal grandfather was Enoch Lewis
(1776-1856), the founder of The African Review, and an active member of the
Underground Railroad.
Charlton Thomas Lewis' father was Joseph Jackson Lewis (1801-1883), a prominent
abolitionist lawyer, editor, and Republican politician. The elder Lewis received his
law degree from the University of New York in 1824, and was admitted to the bar in
West Chester, Pennsylvania County in 1825. In 1827, Lewis married Mary Sinton Miner
(1808-1860), daughter of Charles Miner (1780-1865), a United States congressman,
journalist, and mining entrepreneur. Miner was married to Letitia Wright
(1788-1852).
Joseph Jackson Lewis and Mary Sinton Miner had eight children:
Anna Meredith Lewis (1829-1855); Letitia Miner MacVeagh (-1862); Josephine Jackson
Lewis (1836-1910); Charlton Thomas Lewis (1834-1904); Enoch Edward Lewis
(1838-1879); Mary Ellen Lewis (1841-); Alice Catherine Lewis Murphy (1846-1935); and
Willie Rosalie (1850-1938).
Charlton Thomas Lewis married Nancy (Nannie) Dunlap McKeen (1837-1883) in July 1861.
Nannie came from the family of Joseph McKeen, the first president of the Bowdoin
College. Her father, Joseph McKeen (1787-1865), was a Brunswick merchant and the
Treasurer of Bowdoin College. Nannie's mother, Elizabeth Farley McKeen, hailed from
a prominent Maine family with extensive connections in New England and New York.
Nannie siblings were Elizabeth Farley McKeen (1830-1907); Joseph McKeen (1832-1881);
James McKeen (1844-); and Alice Farley McKeen Scott (1855-1912).
Nannie died on August 19, 1883. Two years later, the widower married Margaret P.,
daughter of Reverend Thomas Sherrard and his wife, Valeria G. Sherrard, of Tecumseh,
Michigan; they had two children, Margaret and James.
Charlton Thomas Lewis and Nancy (Nannie) Dunlap McKeen had four children:
Joseph McKeen Lewis was born on June 26, 1863 in New Brunswick. He graduated from
Yale in 1883, studied in Berlin and Athens and was tutor at Yale. He died on April
29, 1887, at Morristown, New Jersey, evidently of a disease he had contracted while
staying in Greece.
The second son, Charlton Miner Lewis, was born on March 4, 1866. He graduated from
1886. In 1899, he became the Emily Sanford professor of English Literature at Yale
and author of numerous books on the English medieval and Renaissance literature. He
died in 1923.
Elizabeth Dike Lewis was born on August 13, 1873. She went to Smith College and
studied at Sorbonne. She later taught history and political science and contributed
to Lippincott Monthly and other magazines; in 1904, she married a well-known
economist Clive Hart Day (1871-1951).
The youngest daughter, Mary Sinton Lewis, was born on September 8, 1876. She attended
Smith College, Columbia University and schools in France and Germany. In New York,
she served as an inspector of women's prisons. She later became a contributing
editor to Harper's Monthly, the New York Herald, and the New York Evening Post. On
leaving these positions, she began a world tour on sailing ships and tramp steamers
to gain insight into native languages and customs. In 1907, she married Captain John
David Leitch and settled in Lynnhaven, Virginia. She was one of the founding members
of the Poetry Society of Virginia. She died on August 20, 1954.
The collection includes correspondence from both Lewis and McKeen families, thus,
covering Pennsylvania, New England, New York, war-time Washington, and even, the
West. Correspondence of Charlton Thomas Lewis and his first wife, Nancy (Nannie)
Dunlap McKeen Lewis, along with their extended families constitutes the core of the
collection.
The correspondence of Charlton Thomas Lewis with his parents begins with his Yale
years. The letters discuss Charlton's studies, his future, family affairs, and
political news. In his letters home, Charlton also shares his religious experiences,
shedding new light on the history of the Second Great Awakening in New England,
especially at Yale. On Feb. 27, 1851, he writes to his mother: "Seventeen years old!
If I ever attain to common sense, I ought to have some of it now. Yes, and if I ever
gain heaven, I ought to have a pre-taste of it now. And I didn't know any better
place than the first Methodist church in New Haven. The work moves gloriously on.
Sixty one were admitted as penitents last Sunday afternoon. Every evening, the altar
is crowded with penitents, and the pews have to be vacated to make room, as well as
the benches between the pulpit and the pews...It is stated that there are fifteenth
thousand souls in New Haven, who, if they were die now, would leave no hope
behind...the prayer of the church now is to shake and sweep the city." He continues:
"It will be my duty, at some future day, instead of devoting the energies of my
immortal soul while on earth to the elucidation of musty follies of litigation, for
the sake of earthly riche, to become a Methodist preacher, study Moses and the
prophets, not forgetting the newer and more glorious covenant, and endeavor to lead
souls with me, who shall be stars in the crown of my rejoicing...And my object in
telling you so is to ask you opinion of what Father would think, at this point. I
know you would not object to my immuring myself in the deserts of Africa, among
Caffres, if God called. But perhaps he may view this matter in a different light;
and I know he has long looked forward to seeing me settled in practice; has gathered
a library...I am heartily sick of this worlds jigs, and feel sometimes that I could
not live in any money-making employment."
The letters of Joseph Jackson Lewis to his son, Charlton Thomas Lewis, detail his
literary writings, trials, trips, as well as updates on local and national politics,
not to mention, local gossip. He reports on his encounters with fellow Republican
politicians, such as Washington Townsend (1813-1894) and other political
celebrities, such as Horace Greeley, who fails to impress him as "a man of decidedly
intellectual cast." In 1855, he describes his encounter with Emma Alice Browne
(1836-1890), a gifted but somewhat elusive poet, who was then attending school in
Westchester: "I like her exceedingly. She has not only vast ideality but an
excellent rationative mind. She thinks well and accurately...She has greatly
interested your mother who you know cares in general very little about poets and
poetry. They have talked very freely together, and Emma has told your mother a good
deal of her private history. Yesterday at the American she recited to us her battle
of Balaclava which your mother says if superior to any thing Tennyson ever
wrote."
At times, the elder Lewis' letters are delightfully chatty. In an 1853 letter to
Charlton, Lewis describes a nice party to which Charlton's mother did not go for
fear of being forced to dance. Her husband remarks that her fears were unfounded:
"there was no dance nor any other subject of special horror – unless indeed it was
the killing looks of some of the young ladies" who were trying to impress "the crowd
of hirsute dandies that fluttered about the room."
The elder Lewis' letters depict conscientious man, if a bit, overbearing parent. He
was very much concerned with proper education for his children. His daughters were
brought up in accordance to Lewis' standards of femininity, which went well beyond
customary emphasis on beauty, modesty, and domesticity. In 1853, Lewis who had come
to accept his son's choice, advises him on his conference sermon: "I would have you
retouch it...make it sing, bright, sharp, as that it will not merely blaze but cut
and burn."
In his letters from Albany and then Cincinnati, Lewis and Charlton discuss the
politics of the eve of the Civil War. Although Charlton seems to lack the political
fervor of his father, the younger Lewis was dismayed by the rancorous convention in
Charleston that made "him very sick at heart...the party would unite for another
plunge to a little lower deep of political and moral degradation." On November 11,
1860, Charlton describes a sermon that contained his thoughts on "the teaching of
the early Friends on the great doctrine of the 'Light within' was the doctrine of
the early church, as well as of the New Testament, has been that of most of the
noblest and best men of the church in all ages; of none, perhaps, more distinctly
and emphatically than Martin Luther, and it today a part of our creed in Methodism.
Accordingly, I tried this evening to present to the Congregation my views of it,
with some profit to myself, and I hope to some of them. But while the great doctrine
is true and important, it seems to me that the Friends carried it too far. They made
it a guide to the judgment, at informer of the intellect, and further, constantly
appealed to it as a conscious manifested." In December 1860, in the waning days of
the Buchanan administration, Charlton laments: "our poor Country shall languish
under the control of traitors. It seems to be almost a crime to be patient with
those who would sacrifice principle now. If the North does not awake from its moral
lethargy under its present stimulus, I know not what hope there is. Perhaps the
Consummation of Floyd's treasure, with the clear proof of the President complicity,
may make some impression. But troublous times threaten." (John B. Floyd, Buchanan's
Secretary of War, had just resigned amidst accusations of corruption in hiring
government contractors). At the beginning of the war, the elder Lewis urges him to
write an "article thoroughly expounding the causes of the war." Although Charlton
somewhat lacked in patriotic fervor, he did acknowledge that the war was a
necessity. On March 17, 1862, he writes: "I confess since we are in the war, I want
it to be fought out." In February 1862, he provides an overview of the New York
statutes on women's property rights. He also describes his service in Cincinnati,
including the problems caused by his pro-Union sermons that "have offended a great
many" and "several (Copperheads and such-like) have left the Church."
The later correspondence between Charlton and his father is remarkably multifaceted,
because the two were also colleagues and business partners. The correspondence
became increasingly professional from 1863 through 1865, during their time with the
Internal Revenue Bureau; the letters provide a great resource for historians of
economic aspects of the war. In the post-war years, the two discusses various tax
cases, the Internal Revenue Services, tax politics, legal cases having to do with
insurance, including malpractice suits, etc.
The correspondence between Charlton Thomas Lewis and his first wife Nancy (Nannie)
Dunlap McKeen covers 22 years of their marriage. The spouses were frequently
separated, which resulted in voluminous correspondence. Charlton always made a point
to time his letters, so that she would receive a letter with every mail. Their
letters are candid, loving, and thoughtful.
The letters cover the 1860s, when Nannie stayed with her family in Brunswick, Maine
for fear of the vagaries of life in war-time Washington and then, cholera that broke
out in Brooklyn in 1866, trip to Europe in 1867, and her frequent visits to the
family's summer home in Connecticut. Also included are letters written during their
courtship and engagement. Charlton sent her books and magazines for Nannie to
discuss them with him. He shares with her the most minute details of his life. While
he was in Troy, he describes an argument with his fellow Troy professor on
constitutional issues, the debates over the Trent affair, his first "military
drill," and the articles for The Methodist, New Englander, North American Review,
Weed's Sermons and other publications that he was working on. His letters from
Washington depict an insanely busy Treasury Department and his attempts at social
life, including attending Kate Chase's wedding in July 1864, Agassiz's lecture on
the glaciers at The Smithsonian, and a Methodist Missionary Meeting "presided over
by the Secretary Chase, and bespeeched by Foss of Brooklyn and others." On April 21,
1865, he reports on the funeral sermon that he delivered in Fort Monroe: "We reached
Fr. Monroe Tuesday A.M. and hear there the awful tidings of Mr. Lincoln's murder. I
left the ship, which took Nannie and the other passengers to New York; intending to
join you in Washington Wednesday morning and attend the funeral. But I delegation of
officers...waited on me, and requested me to remain there, and deliver an address at
the funeral hour to the army, navy, and citizens at Fortress Monroe. I consented,
after much hesitation. They erected a fine stand, draped with emblems of patriotic
mourning, and covered a large area with seats. At the hour, noon, a vast throng came
together: officers, from Generals & Commodores down; the 5th Regt. Penn.
Artillery on parade as infantry; the employees of Govt. at the post, refugees,
contrabands, and about 500 of the 4000 Lee's paroled army. A motley audience indeed;
yet one in listening, attentive by and respectfully to all I said."
Nannie's correspondence includes her letters to her family and friends and
constitutes about a third of the collection. The letters document the life of an
"evangelical feminist." Nannie's letters to her sisters and childhood friends Annie
(Anna H. Vaughan?) and Hattie (Harriett Abbott?) provide an intimate insight into
the evangelical perfectionism that was the hallmark of the religious revival in the
1850s. She was always worried that her devotion sprung "not so much from love to
Jesus and fear of grieving Him as from fear of future punishment." She documents her
struggle to become "a Christian child of God." She was terrified of dying and "going
to Christ until I was almost a Christian." Her fears were stirred by the death of
sister.
Nannie read a lot and was despondent about having to miss a year of school. While
staying at home, she ran "a little charity school" for the neighborhood children and
was a member of the society that collected money for the Sons of Temperance. She
also attended exhibits and public events, including a eulogy for Daniel Webster. Her
letters contain gossipy, yet earnest glimpses in the life of a New England college
town. In a horrifying example, a young "tailoress" girl was killed instantly by an
oncoming train. In another incident, a student riot occurred, after a Bowdoin
student got expelled.
The post-war portion includes Nannie's correspondence with her two dearest friends –
Annie (probably Anna H. Vaughan, as indicated on the envelopes), Elizabeth "Lizzie"
Dike, wife of a Henry N. Dike of Montclair, N.J., and Elizabeth L. Smith, wife of a
Henry B. Smith.
The collection also includes the correspondence of Charlton Thomas Lewis' sons,
Joseph McKeen Lewis and Charlton Miner Lewis, including a large group of condolence
letters regarding Joseph's death in 1887. The group also includes letters from Emily
Penrose, an English classicist and archeologist, the first woman to achieve a
first-class degree in the school of literae humaniores, a professor of ancient
history, and college principal. She was in Athens with the younger Lewis and gave a
detailed account of the Anglo-American community in Athens and Lewis's friendship
with her and her archeologist father. Also included are correspondence and
miscellaneous manuscripts of Charles Miner Lewis, primarily covering his studies at
Yale. This portion also contains some letters by the Lewis' girls, Elizabeth (Elsie)
Dike Lewis Day and Mary Sinton Lewis Leitch, mostly their childhood letters, some
adorned with drawings.
The collection also includes letters that Charlton Thomas Lewis received in his
capacity as the managing editor of the Evening Standard. When the Lewis family was
leaving for Germany in 1871, Francis Lieber supplied him with recommendations and
advised him to explore the issue of the extradition of some Paris revolutionaries
who had found refuge in America.
There are about a hundred letters written by Nannie's mother, Elizabeth Farley McKeen
to her abolitionist family in Rochester. The letters contain the news of the Farley
and Porter families, and vividly describe life in a New England college town and
family life in Rochester, New York.
Writing from Brunswick, Maine, Elizabeth Farley McKeen describes "quite a movement,"
i.e. a fundraising campaign to build a new chapel at Bowdoin, including her effort
to attract friends, family and the town's women. In the letter of April 1, 1850, she
mentions "Aunt Lucy" employed as a companion to "Mr. and Mrs. Thurston" who were
traveling to the Peace Convention in Germany next August. Reverend David Thurston
(1779-1865) was from Winthrop, Maine. He was a Calvinist, president of the American
Missionary Association and the Maine Branch of the American Education Society. A
year later, he was forced to resign because of his abolitionist views. In the same
letter she gives an account of "a course of lecture here now – Rev. Woods gave one
last week that he had delivered in several places during the winter and it was a
very splendid performance the subject was the Liberty of the Ancient Republics – he
had a crowded audience who listened to him an hour and a half with great attention –
he uses no notes." This was the Reverend Leonard Woods (1774-1854), one of the
founders of the American Education Society. She also discusses John Webster's trial:
"I think he may be acquitted." When the jury came back with a guilty verdict, she
wrote: "I think it is a righteous one, but I do from my heart pity the man and his
family – it is right that he should not be exempted from punishment on account of
his station in life, his guilt is much greater on account of his advantages of
education, society, etc." She continues: "There was a special meeting last week of
the college boards to elect a Professor of theology, and Dr. Stowe of Cincinnati was
chosen. – his wife on account of peculiar circumstances will come on in April – it
is that they will we quite an acquisition to our society – he wishes to have twenty
five girls under her care – has five or six children of her own I don't know where
she finds time to write books." This, of course, is Calvin Stowe, Harriet Beecher
Stowe's husband. She also reports on a school for young ladies founded by a Bowdoin
Professor Smyth "one of the Committee and has taken great interest in the school and
is very proud of the class of young ladies – they have been pursuing college studies
and he say he has not more than one class in ten in College who pass so good an
examination as they have." She then proceeds to describe a Methodist revival in New
Brunswick attended by "more than two thousand persons" (1851).
The letters of Joseph McKeen, Nannie's father, contain a lot of information on
business affairs and challenges of lobbying. In March 1861, he reports that the
"measures to erect a new medical edifice," were facing problems with appropriations.
He also discusses at length the politics of slavery and secession: "I feel
exceedingly tried in political matters. I some times think I should prefer to have
all the slave states go & be a govt. by themselves – We could then treat them as
a foreign nation & if they did not do right call them to account...I abominate
above all things the position which Virginia assumes – to be a mediator when her
sympathies are on one side – N. Carolina is no better." On April 29, 1861, he
somewhat sarcastically writes his wife: "When the train arrives Elizabeth takes the
Boston Journal & reads aloud to all the rest & so goes the stream for two
hours – hurrah for stars & stripes, glorious old Massachusetts, etc. – I shall
be sorry to have the war stopped now till all its great purposes are accomplished.
We have had threats & taunts enough & abuse enough & now the time is
fully come as I trust to square up the account...The War I trust will be short &
glorious...I am glad Virginia is gone. Mason & Dixon line is the line for me. We
should compel Missouri & Maryland to unite with us or to be annihilated. The
preservation of Washington requires that Maryland be ours – it may require that
Baltimore disappear from the list of cities, even as Sodom. We all rejoined over the
spirit & energy manifested in Rochester – No more fugitive slave acts – all are
repealed at Fort Sumter."
On June 15, 1862, McKeen writes to his son-in-law: "We are having a glorious revival.
It has got into the papers, where it is spoken in extravagant terms, still it is a
great work." On May 17, 1864, he reports: "The Baptists proposed a union meeting in
our village. Mr. Adams held back & most of his people did the same. The result
was about 80 conversions, some to Topham and some to Mr. Adams's society." This is
most likely Reverend George Eliashib Adams (1801-1865) of first Parish
Congregational church, the adoptive father of Fanny Adams Chamberlain, then a
trustee of the Bowdoin Theological Seminary. McKeen continues: "Banks I fear is lost
to himself & his country – It is whispered rather confidentially that
intemperance is his besetting and disqualifying sin. I am told too that he is
exceedingly profane. A residence in New Orleans would have no tendency to check
either of these vices. But for the loss and exposure & suffering of our men I
should have no objection to the south holding on as long as they possibly can &
until they thoroughly subdued – That portion of our need better men. – I suppose the
negroes will remain then & have an intent in the soil & to be citizens – I
see no other way. The poor ‘whitetrash' will stand some chance to be better educated
& trained & to become men." He laments the decline of the Bowdoin that "has
suffered very much in numbers in consequence of the war. We are reduced from 170 to
180 down to about 100. This is a great loss to us. On October 27, 1864, he wrote to
his baby granddaughter Lizzie, a little girl who can "walk about quite well" but
whose family "cannot very well understand what you say to them," which shows how
"much smarter you are than they."
The collection also includes letters from the members of the related families – the
Darlingtons, Porters, Pecks, Farleys, and Robbins.
Arrangement
Arranged alphabetically.
Lewis, Charlton Miner, 1866-1923
Lewis, Charlton T. (Charlton Thomas), 1834-1904
Lewis, Joseph Jackson, 1801-1883
Lewis, Joseph McKeen, 1863-1887
Lewis, Mary Sinton Miner, 1808-1860
Lewis, Nancy Dunlap McKeen, 1837-1883
McKeen, Elizabeth Farley, 1810-1881
McKeen, Elizabeth Farley, 1830-1907
McKeen, James, 1844-
McKeen, Joseph, 1787-1865
McKeen, Mary Ellen Lewis, 1841-
Porter, Samuel D. (Saumel Drummond), 1808-1881
Porter, Susan Farley, 1811-1880
Smith, Elizabeth Lee Allen, 1817-1898
Bowdoin College
United States. Internal Revenue
Service -- History
Yale University -- History
Actuaries
Children -- New York (State)
Journalists
Lawyers
Women -- New England
Women -- New York (State)
Brunswick (Me.) -- History
Maine -- History
New York (State) -- History
New York (N.Y.) -- History
United States -- History -- Civil War,
1861-1865
Letters (correspondence)